For a period of time in public space

Excerpt from a podium discussion at the Art Cologne 2001 about Moment, the temporary art project by the Deutsche Bank.

Guests:
Jean-Christophe Ammann
Ayse Erkmen
Walter Grasskamp
Friedrich Meschede
Tobias Rehberger
Karin Sander

Jean-Christophe Ammann:
What the Deutsche Bank is planning here amounts to pioneer work, I mean, who else does anything like it? Many companies around the world are going to say they're crazy. What kind of a strategy can be at the bottom of it? They're taking infinitely more risk and have more courage than many others are able or willing to. In my view, something's being done here that didn't previously exist, and at the same time it's a logical step in terms of the overall development of art in public space.

Walter Grasskamp:
I agree. Back in 1983 or 1984 in the art magazine Parkett, you were the first to express an uneasiness over how obtrusive art in public space can be, how monumental, how long-term, and how insensitive that can be to the environment. And so people began conceiving of works that took place in the public arena, but in a form that only answers when it's being addressed, as it were. Then the sculpture project in Münster came into being in 1987. A second solution seemed to present itself here: site-specific work. Ultimately, the question was why art always had to be erected permanently in public space. This discussion goes back to the eighties, and there are certain pioneer figures that have to be mentioned in this context, not least Roman Siegner, who was underestimated for a long period of time, or Dieter Roth, who had planned a self-portrait made out of bird seed, not exactly a long-term sculpture in public space, either. Münster was successful for that very reason, that everything had to be cleared away after three months. That had something very relaxing about it. But this idea takes on another color altogether, of course, when a bank picks up on it and stages it in public space using entirely different means. Seen critically, one could say that banks, insurance companies, and large firms use traditional institutions of education and culture as a decor for social events at the highest level. The rooms seem to be made for this: they sponsor these institutions, while at the same time they reinterpret them for their own purposes, so to speak. And so, when it comes to the Moment series of the Deutsche Bank, can't we see two different interests being satisfied here - on the one hand, the continuation of the idea of staging art in public space as a temporary event, and on the other the implementation of art as material for events?

Jean-Christophe Ammann:
Who's the central figure at a bank, though? Without a doubt, it's the shareholder. That's who matters. And so it's not about doing banking business and a little art on the side. That's not the point of the matter. If the shareholder is at the center, then we have to ask ourselves: who is this shareholder? Deutsche Bank is a gigantic company and says: we can define this shareholder, and he's not only a money-hungry being, but a cultured one, too. And this cultured being goes to exhibitions, goes to the theater, the opera, the cinema.

Deutsche Bank bought 50,000 works of art for their staff. And you can always hear someone say: "But people don't see that." Yet thousands of people see it every day: namely, the staff at their workplace. People simply forget that. And they're not locked in the two towers of the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, but work in many locations around the globe, and the works are constantly being lent out to museums and institutions, and catalogues are printed. I think that if a decision was made now to go public, then that really means bringing Citizen Ship home.

Deutsche Bank has many goals, and above all a formidable cultural program. It includes the shareholder in an activity that carries him forward both as a shareholder and as a cultured person, projecting him a little bit into the future. If I've ever done anything for a bank or a company, I didn't do it for the company, but for the many hundreds or thousands of people working for that company.

Friedhelm Hütte:
The art department of the bank never made a decision against the monument or the autonomous sculpture. We wanted to move outside of the walls, out of the architecture, the bank buildings, because the bank is becoming increasingly affected by the internet and public communication and its activities will continue to shift to the virtual and public arenas. And we have to address this in the area of art, as well. We've been asking ourselves how we should react to this overall change. We can't just meddle in the lives of ordinary citizens and say we find this or that sculpture beautiful and that's why we're going to put it here or there. Instead, we've decided to offer food for thought, to make aesthetic experience possible. We're trying to get rid of a deficit - for a limited time. Nobody has to live with it over a period of years. We found the idea of a temporary intervention much more democratic and our own role more appropriate that placing permanent sculptures in public space.

Ariane Grigoteit:
If we can reach different kinds of people with a project of this kind, and if they stop and give it some thought, then we've already achieved a lot. This goes as much for the colleagues at the bank as everyone else who lives together with us. There are phenomena dictated by economics and put into action by politics. But there are also certain social aspects that art is the first to respond to, after which all other areas follow in suit. This fascinated us to such a degree that we thought about how we could make these relationships visible. How can we get artists, viewers, and colleagues into one boat and bring these phenomena into a new context with temporary works of art?

Friedhelm Meschede:
I'd like to address yet another aspect. The question popped up: "What is the relationship between cost and effect, and is it justified?" I think that the title Moment is very convincing in this respect. I'd like to illustrate this once again using a different example. I had the opportunity to put on exhibitions with artists of the German Academic Exchange Service in Berlin's National Gallery, in the exhibition space upstairs, the one designed by Mies van der Rohe, a really fantastic building. Jenny Holzer showed a spectacular work, making the whole of Mies van der Rohe's ceiling fly using these illuminated letters that could be seen day and night. In spite of this, after three months, while the work was being taken down, all of a sudden the idea was there: "Now we can see Mies van der Rohe again."
I think that every large-scale, expensive work that takes place in a context of this sort lives from its temporality. From the moment. On the other hand, even the most monumental works disappear at some point and can no longer be seen. There's a certain relief when large, spectacular works are taken down again. In my opinion, however, they're worth all the trouble and expense, because that is the phenomenon of art, as well: rarity, temporality, limitations. And it is precisely in the establishment of boundaries that a certain grandeur lies.

Translation: Andrea Scrima